blizzard

The wild winter storm in the northeast US is causing major disruptions to highway travel including tollroads. Worst hit seem to Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York states but the storm seems to be dumping snow amid very high gusty winds all the way from Michigan in the west to Maine in the far northeast and down to West Virginia.

West Virginia Turnpike authority has taken delivery of four emergency median barrier gates. They will be installed in a mountainous stretch of the Turnpike where interchanges and access are distant. The purchase follows a furore over some hundreds of motorists trapped in their cars for up to 24 hours during the pre-Christmas blizzard and some 40 inches (1m) of snow in ten hours. Traffic was backed up for miles by tractor-trailers jack-knifing on ice and multiple rear-ender collisions.